Jobs would approve
Score one for Saturday Night Live: The unfunny Steve Jobs tribute never airedfor good reason
The times are few and far between, but the rare occasion exists when Saturday Night Live actually makes a good decision.
Like in opting not to air its supremely unfunny tribute to deceased Apple founder Steve Jobs, for example.
The cleverly orchestrated Charlie Rose parody (lead by Bill Hader) featured the stellar portrayal of The Huffington Post's Arianna Huffington (played by Nasim Pedrad), Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg (who else but Andy Samberg?), Netflix CEO Reed Hastings (Jason Sudeikis), and News Corp. chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch (Fred Armisen). The mockery opens with the quartet (and Murdoch via satellite) sitting in the round, preparing to pay lip service to the meaning of the Steve Jobs legacy.
But the plot was where the entertainment ended.
The commentary that followed went beyond the laughable, so-true-it's-funny moments characteristic of SNL's signature schtick to an awkwardly chuckling, uncomfortably honest six-ish minutes.
"Facebook.com started off as a simple, user-friendly website, but now it's just a mess," said Samberg as Zuckerberg. "Steve Jobs once said, 'People don't know what they like until you show it to them.' So, at Facebook, we show people things, and they don't like them."
Ask any Facebook user if the latest round of changes has them giggling, and you won't find a titter among the lot.
"Comparing Apple to Netflix is like comparing apples to oranges—especially if oranges made so many mistakes that so many people stopped eating oranges and went back to Blockbuster," said Sudeikis as Hastings.
Um, R.I.P. Qwikster?
It's always possible to be disappointed when SNL's humor falls short, but leaving a half-assed Jobs tribute to the Internet savvy masses? Well, we think Jobs would've wanted it that way.
Watch the SNL skit for yourself below.